Paul E. Sprague is a professor
emeritus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His studies
in architectural history have included extensive research on
the careers of Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin, and
Marion Mahony Griffin. Sprague is also the co-author of Two
American Architects in India, Walter B. Griffin and Marion M.
Griffin 1935 - 1937.

QUESTION: What was Louis Sullivan's
message to architects at the turn of the century?

PAUL SPRAGUE: They didn't have much
background, much baggage to carry around like the people on the
East Coast who wanted to be like Europe. Well, I suppose they
wanted to be like Europe in Chicago but somehow they were raw
and they could think for themselves.

QUESTION: So Chicago was a logical place?

PAUL SPRAGUE: It was a possible place
to find some clients who would be willing to build it, that was
the thing. Most of the architects in Chicago weren't doing this,
you know. It was first Louis Sullivan, then his student Frank
Lloyd Wright, then Wright's student, colleague, whatever you
want to call it, Griffin, and then a number of others. George
Elmslie who worked for Sullivan and had been with Wright in the
Silsbey office, and a number of others, but basically you can
count them on the fingers of both hands.

QUESTION: Compare Griffin's and Wright's
clients?

PAUL SPRAGUE: Wright's early clients
from this period, actually just before Griffin went to work for
him, were people that his family knew; he knew from the churches
he belonged to, which was the one in Oak Park and the one his
Uncle ran in Chicago; and neighbors. These were the people who
came to him. And some of those actually built his houses. They
tended to be relatively well-to-do. His houses weren't inexpensive
although he was interested in low cost housing, and he did design
a number of houses for his first patron, Charles Roberts; some
of which were built in Oak Park in the 1890's. Griffin's clients,
well, one of his first was his brother. He designed in 1906 a
house that was not built until 1909 in Edwardsville. His brother
probably came in to give him a hand. And he had another commission
for a landscape for Northern Illinois University. And those two
things probably got him started. And he got a commission for
Harry Peters in Chicago. And I don't know how he got that commission.
And then we find him working most often for developers, which
is something Wright would never do because they were not interested
in quality so much. But Griffin had a way where he was able to
convince these developers to build these strange houses that
he was designing. I mean it was almost like a spiritual message
he was bringing to them. And one developer in Winnetka that owned
a lot of land actually built one of these strange houses in 1910
that we call Solid Rock. And eventually this developer got burned
because nobody wanted to live in it. And then Griffin convinced
Temple and some others to buy a piece of property just north
of there, do a whole 35 house development north of there. And
Griffin designed a house for himself there. And one of them was
built; it looks a little different now but there was actually
one house built. So, Griffin had to think in terms of reducing
the cost and one of those ways was not to have all of those artistic
details that Wright would included in his houses, and to try
to use the materials that could be used inexpensively in concrete.
But he wasn't just thinking of building for the common man, he
had to.

QUESTION: What was the significance
of the L-shaped plan?

PAUL SPRAGUE: The main significance
of that kind of plan, having the living room extend into the
dining room around a fireplace with the kitchen in the other
corner,is that it was a house with a flowing space; a large space
that could be built at small size and inexpensively. The first
of these that Griffin had anything to do with was for a friend
of Frank Lloyd Wright's, (Mr.) Robie, built in Madison in 1903.
It is the incipient plan. The fireplace is not in the corner
but just to the left of the corner. As it got developed by Griffin,
and then Wright, you would come inside opposite the L. In this
case, he came in right into the L.This house is full of little
Griffin things; it even had a roof garden on top, something Griffin
used extensively later and Wright never used. We have evidence
that Griffin actually went to Madison to supervise the construction
so it is probable that Wright just gave most of this to Griffin
without paying too much attention. And the L-shaped floor plan
starts there and then it appears again in 1906. Wright does not
come up with this concept until 1907 in house he did for Ladies
Home Journal in reinforced concrete. And after that, Wright used
it a couple times but most of these other guys picked up on that
because it was the perfect solution to this problem. First, you
have to realize that Griffin invented it and then it became significant
in a small sort of way because it could be directed to someone
that was less affluent.

QUESTION: Why is the Carter house significant?

PAUL SPRAGUE: It is significant in Griffin's
career mainly because it is a very nice house; very well detailed
and has nice materials and so forth. It is, however, a kind of
summary of his early work and at the same times it has many elements
that are reminiscent of Wright. So that is why it is significant
because it is so reminiscent in some way of Wright. And that
is why it is not so terribly significant. However, if you look
at the house in detail,there are many elements which, visual
elements, that Wright never did much with. One was these open
gables. Griffin liked these corner piers and they appeared in
that house. Griffin also had this particular kind of interest
that had to do with involving the house with nature and organic
qualities; of pushing a room out of the main body of the house
and surrounding it by a porch. And that occurs on that house.
This kind of thing, for all the organic nonsense that Wright
hands out, this kind of thing never seems to interest him. Otherwise,
the fireplace looks like Wright, and the interlocking spaces
and so forth look like Wright. You come in at grade like Wright.The
window details are Griffin's. Griffin like to use wooden mullions
which have a strong, more masculine, quality. Wright liked the
art glass that Marion Mahony designed for him and occasionally
other people in the office.

QUESTION: When comparing Griffin and
Wright, is Wright the better designer?

PAUL SPRAGUE: One of the great difficulties
in any of the arts is to explain why a particular building or
work of art is aesthetically more pleasing than another. Comparing
Wright to anyone - Sullivan, Griffin, whoever - is difficult
to do unless you have some building right there that you can
contrast. The truth is that Wright had many, many more ideas
than Griffin and his teacher Sullivan. And he could work out
plans and details and artistic formula more easily and more effectively
than Griffin or Sullivan or anyone else. And he has been recognized
for that. He has an international reputation. Probably one of
the 20 or 30 most famous architects in the world. Unless we took
two examples and compared them side by side and then you would
be begging a lot of questions like is Wright's artistic interior
better than one that is rather barren like Griffin's? Or is that
a different point of view and how well could Wright do one like
that, which he never he did? But none-the-less, the general consensus
is, and is likely to remain, that Wright was a better designer
than Griffin. And that's o.k. I don't think Griffin ever suggested
to anyone that he was a better designer than Wright. What Wright
did was suggest that Griffin was a terrible designer. And that's
only because Wright would build up these animosities to people
for other reasons and then they could do no right, if you pardon
the pun.

QUESTION: What were Griffin's greatest
strengths as an architect?

PAUL SPRAGUE: Let 's go out to Mason
City, the Melson House. That is a perfect example because Wright
made a design for that house on the same site, it's a perfectly
ordinary Wright house: two story living room, dining room on
the left, porch on the right, some things behind, sat on the
edge of the cliff and two stories of glass. Wright went to Europe,
Melson got tired of Wright for one reason or another, he went
to Marion Mahony, who was now finishing Wright's commissions.
Marion made a redesign for that house and it's more or less Wright,
but a little more clunky in various ways. Well, nothing happened
and then in 1911, she married Griffin. Melson comes back again
and now they want to develop this whole valley. And he says,
"Why don't you let Walter take a look at it. He's a landscape
architect too." And so he designs the most organic house
in the whole world! If you are talking about Wright as an organic
architect can you believe this thing? I mean stand down there
at the creek and you look at the living rock and you wonder,
where does the house start? It goes up and up and up and then
it's get bold and has these incredible pieces of masonry sticking
out until you can't tell where the surface of the house is. You
don't know where it is. And then he's got these incredible keystones
of reinforced concrete at the top. Now where have you ever seen
a house like this in the whole world? Is this better than Wright?
Well, the plan is the same L-shaped plan, but dramatic? The thing
really speaks! It is so unusual you can't imagine. The people
who just bought it and restored it wanted to live in this place.
I talked to the woman who lived there before. She said to me
one day, "Mr. Sprague, people come down to my house, knock
on my door and say where do they keep the animals?" So who
could design something like that and get someone to build it?
It was just quite amazing. And put it up against any of Wright's
houses up to that period. Now it may not be finished the same
way that Wright might finish it, if he had ever thought of it.
The closest he gets to this kind of design is with Midway Gardens
where he puts a lot of concrete ornament over a building that
looks a lot like his other buildings except for that, and then
in various other buildings he did in the 20's. And so that one
really speaks. And Griffin did some other buildings at this time,
like that library down in Anna, Illinois. Which really if you
take a picture - I take a picture and show it to my students
- of all these houses and suddenly this strange thing sitting
there. But it is a wonderful building. This one has great space
inside but this is like living rock. In fact, at Mason City when
Griffin came back for the last visit before he went to Australia
and the building was finished, he climbed the whole way up. And
I've tried that. It is kind of scary. But he's it integrated
into nature; you don't know where the living rock stops and the
house begins. And this is the kind of architect he was. Well,
how is it better or worse than Wright? It is hard to say, but
certainly it was different. And that is what people have not
given Griffin credit for. He went beyond Wright and he developed
his own manner in this rather aboriginal style,. This thing is
back not in the historic past but prehistoric past!

QUESTION: What do you like about the
Blythe House?

PAUL SPRAGUE: Well, the Blythe House
is a very interesting residence for a number of reasons. First
of all, it wasn't designed for Mason City. If he was an organic
architect, then it should have been designed for the site. But
he designed it for his friend, the developer Temple. When Temple
didn't build it - we don't know why - the idea was still there.
It was a good idea. Now, what Wright did and what Griffin did
in this particular case, they took an already existing building
that was perfectly great and he oriented it to the new site and
he made a few changes. The original house had a drive-through
garage. And that was not possible on the Blythe site so he stopped
it and turned it into a garage. But basically he got and it to
work fine. There are wonderful areas of glass that look out on
the flatlands before you get to the river. This house was built
of reinforced concrete. Now reinforced concrete or the materials
don't necessarily drive the architect. If Griffin had an idea
that he got from Sullivan, that he also got from Wright, that
in order to achieve a new style the simplification of form would
be a good way to begin from which you could then elaborate. In
Sullivan's case between 1887 and 1890, he designed buildings
with almost no ornament on them. Sullivan was doing cubist buildings.
Sullivan was seeing what he could do with the naked building,
then he returned his ornament. Wright picked this up and that
really becomes the basis for Wright's style; not all these Prairie
things and long low roofs. But it is the geometry, simple geometry
of Wright's work which he achieved in different ways. It is easier
in brick, harder in framed buildings. Wright finally achieves
it in stucco. And Griffin profited from these things. Then Griffin
got this idea of using reinforced concrete. Probably no earlier
than Wright got the idea. Wright used it first aesthetically
in Unity Temple. That building he had designed in brick and stone
and steel. And then in early 1906 he changed it to reinforced
concrete because it would be cheaper and would look the same.
So in Griffin's case, he was actually able to bring reinforced
concrete to small residences. And another interesting thing about
the Blythe House is that he brings it here. He brings it to this
house, and it's fireproof and supposedly cheaper. And this maybe
gives him a means to accentuate that simple geometry to which
he then adds these ornamental details which then look like medieval
Mexican architecture or something like that. Though if you look
at them carefully they are just geometric forms that you could
have whipped up without really thinking about the consequences
for historians. And the third thing about that house that I find
of interest is that Robert McCoy, an orthopedic surgeon, bought
it and has written about it and preserved it. And so it has brought
all these good things together.